Editorial: People with tattoos get bad ink

Tattoos are no longer the badge of rebellion they once were. Where once it was for people born to be wild, now people who were born to be mild have subjected their body canvas to the coloring needle.

Despite the fact an estimated 16 percent of Americans have one, people with tattoos still have a bad image with some. Unfortunately, that means Dawn Fazio’s dream of owning her own business, at least in Hanover, has been put on hold.

Fazio had planned to open up a tattoo parlor in the south section of Hanover in a building once occupied by a nail salon. She had a lease and the approval of the town Board of Health. It looked like all systems were go until residents of the area near Cross Street and Broadway turned out in force at a perfunctory Zoning Board meeting.

The landlord, fearful of reprisals, revoked Fazio’s lease and she is back to Square One.

The residents said Fazio’s body art emporium was inappropriate for their family neighborhood because of the riff raff (read: bikers) such a business would attract. Since the health board gave its approval and Fazio had inked a lease to go into a place where body art (painting nails) had previously been performed, we’re not quite sure what the problem is.

There has been a stigma attached to tattoos for generations, which is why Massachusetts resisted the legalization until 2001. But now that it is legal and regulated, it is a form of art and expression that is beginning to widen in appeal and acceptance.

In 1935, Life magazine estimated about 6 percent of the population had a tattoo; nearly three times that now have at least one tattoo. In 2006, a survey by the estimable Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of Americans between the age of 26 and 50 had a tattoo. A 2003 Harris poll found that 14 percent of Republicans had tattoos, and 18 percent of Democrats bore at least one tat.

Tattoos are no longer the badge of rebellion they once were. Where once it was for people born to be wild, now people who were born to be mild have subjected their body canvas to the coloring needle.

Husbands and wives are getting matching tattoos as a sign of fidelity (although with laser removal available they don’t have to avoid divorce for the sake of the ink.) Parents are getting tattoos with their children’s names.

Some family members who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks have forever etched their memories on themselves.

The people of South Hanover are caught in the past, basing their opposition to a growing industry on now-defunct caricatures. In halting a budding artist and entrepreneur from realizing her dream, they are teaching their children a lesson in prejudice based on ill-founded fears. Because, like most books, you can’t judge a tattooed person by his or her cover.